Crack force to pull out of Ambon

By Tom Allard, Jakarta

14 September 2010 — 3:00am

AN ELITE Indonesian counter-terrorism force that receives funding from Australia will be removed from a key province following allegations of brutality and torture of peaceful political protesters, according to the head of the force.

Brigadier General Tito Karnavian told The Age it was clear that separatists in the Maluku archipelago were peaceful, which meant there was no need for Detachment 88 members to be stationed in the local capital, Ambon. ''Detachment 88 in Ambon will be dismissed very soon,'' he said.

The statement came a day after The Age yesterday revealed allegations by a group of men who were arrested last month and taken to Detachment 88's Ambon headquarters.

They said they were beaten for up to a week; brought to the point of suffocation with plastic bags placed over their heads; pierced with nails while forced to hold stress positions; and ordered to eat raw chillies.

It was also revealed that the Australian embassy in Jakarta had sent an official to investigate the abuses, and that the United States, which also helps fund Detachment 88, had blacklisted members based in Ambon and refused to train or equip them since 2008.

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Brigadier General Karnavian denied there was a systemic problem of excessive force within Detachment 88, a criticism based on the high numbers of terrorist suspects - some 17 in the past year - who have been shot dead rather than arrested.

He said the new allegations of abuses in Maluku could be investigated by local authorities or, possibly, internal affairs.

But Kontras, Indonesia's leading human rights group, says an independent probe of Detachment 88 is the only way to have a serious investigation into its alleged abuses.

However, Brigadier General Karnavian said Detachment 88 had a legitimate role in countering separatism, and its members would remain in Papua, where a long-simmering independence campaign has been running.

He said the situation in Papua was different to Maluku, pointing to the shootings near the US-owned Freeport mine that killed Australian worker Drew Grant and others last year as evidence that separatists were using the ''tactics of terror''.

Papuan independence supporters dispute that its armed wing, the Organisasi Papua Merdeka (OPM), was involved in the Freeport shootings.